Features

For the next few weeks, the Berkeley Planet will publish lists of alleged violations of human rights by the Bush administration for readers to think about, and perhaps use, in their work on the November election. 

The reports are from a forthcoming book, Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11, prepared by Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute and edited by Ann Fagan Ginger (Prometheus Books March 2005). The book documents the effects of the earthquake in human rights since 9/11. One hundred and eighty-three reports spell out the 30 types of alleged violations, actions to stop them, the relevant laws, and the sources. 

The columns will quote from the book and will list the subjects of many reports, plus some sources. Readers can go to http://mcli.org for a complete listing of reports and sources, with web links. 

What is the Real Score in the “War on Terrorism?” 

As a result of the actions by the U.S. Government after 9/11, what is the reality in the “war against terrorism” three years later? 

On July 13, 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a report: “The information-sharing and coordination made possible by section 218 [of the Patriot Act] assisted the prosecution in San Diego of several persons involved in an al Qaeda drugs-for-weapons plot, which culminated in several guilty pleas. They admitted that they conspired to receive, as partial payment for heroin and hashish, four ‘Stinger’ anti-aircraft missiles that they then intended to sell to the Taliban, an organization they knew at the time to be affiliated with al Qaeda.” (Attorney General John Ashcroft, “Report from the Field: The USA Patriot Act at Work,” U.S. Department of Justice, July 13, 2004)  

Ashcroft did not mention that the conspiracy was actually with U.S. undercover agents who offered them the weapons. 

This report from a government official charged with finding the terrorists leaves a series of questions: 

• How many alleged perpetrators of the acts of 9/11 have been charged and convicted of that crime? 

• Have the reasons behind these terrorist actions been clearly spelled out? 

• How many millions of people in the U.S. innocent of crimes were detained, lost their jobs, or had their lives disrupted? 

• Did the loss of 180,000 union jobs through the Homeland Security Department Act actually “ensure airport security?” Was security heightened as a result of repeated efforts to break militant labor unions and destroy the right to organize? 

• When the Department of Defense demanded, and got, massive increases in the military budget, including funding for new types of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, did this increase homeland security?  

• Did it increase homeland security when the DOD denied discharges to service members who discovered they were conscientious objectors to war after joining the service in order to get an education and “to be all you can be?”  

• Is the country more secure because the government has made major cuts in the budget for education, health and human services, medical care, battered women’s shelters, federal courts, and for rehabilitation of parolees and first offenders? 

• Is the United States more secure because 83,000 people were required to register with the Immigration Office once and 13,000 of these people were deported or face deportation? 

• When thousands of foreign scholars and students had their academic work interrupted, or put to an end, although they were not even charged with any wrongdoing, did that help the war against terrorism? 

• Did it help that the U.S. did not honor many of its treaty commitments to other nations? 

• Did people in the U.S. feel more secure when, in December, 2003, the DOD announced that contracts for reconstructing Iraq after the massive damage by U.S. and U.K. bombing would be made only with corporations in nations that supported the U.S. war in Iraq? Did everyone agree to thus eliminating all contracts to corporations in China, France and Germany, among others?  

In this column we will talk about three things: first, the basic background; second, the rights of the people; third, the duties of the U.S. Government. We will give examples of 30 types of rights and duties described in 183 reports in the Challenging book (with sources), to give a sense of the urgency to act against new and continuing violations of human rights since 9/11. 

1. Right of Every Human Being Not to be Killed or Disappeared 

Every human being has a right not to be killed or disappeared—by agents of the United States or state governments, or by individuals. This right is clearly stated in the Fifth, Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, in the United Nations Charter, Article 55c, and in the three human rights treaties ratified by the U.S. by 1994. There are clear limits to killings even in wartime, defined in the Nuremberg Principles, the Geneva Conventions, and in the customary international humanitarian laws of war cited in the 1996 opinion of the International Court of Justice in the Nuclear Weapons case. 

Report 1.1  

Asylum Applicant Deported, then Killed: Ahfaz Khan 

(Louis Salmoe, “Deportation Becomes ‘Death Sentence’,” Palm Beach Post, June 8, 2003, p. 1-A.; Victor M. Hwang and Ivy Lee, “Wen Ho Lee Next Time: Patriot Act Threatens Asian Americans,” Pacific News Service, Sept. 12, 2002.) 

Report 1.6  

County Sheriffs Investigate Deaths at Arizona Border 

(Bob Moser, “Open Season,” Intelligence Report, Spring 2003) 

Report 1.8  

Cluster Bombs Kill after Invasion of Afghanistan Ended 

(Marc W. Herold, “Data on 11 Weeks of U.S. Cluster Bombing of Afghanistan,” Cursor, Feb. 1, 2002; Reuters, “Red Cross Warns Afghan Children off Cluster Bombs,” June 29, 2002)  

To be continued… 

Berkeley resident Ann Fagan Ginger is a lawyer, teacher, activist and the author of 24 books. She won a civil liberties case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1959. She is the founder and executive director of the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute, a Berkeley-based center for human rights and peace law. 

Contents excerpted from Challenging U.S. Human Rights Violations Since 9/11, by Ann Fagan Ginger (c. 2004 MCLI).?